Princess Palace

02 March 2026

A Princess Who Made Her Own Choices

via Wikimedia Commons

The violet-eyed Princess could not take her eyes off of the handsome young Grand Duke with the piercing light blue eyes. Victoria Melita had always been high-spirited and a bit of a tomboy, but she was on her best behavior on this trip to her mother's homeland for her aunt's funeral in St. Petersburg, Russia. Not quite 15 years old, she was trying to be on her best behavior, but something abour her cousin Kirill Vladimirovich made her heart flutter. He could hardly be more handsome and how dashing--he was, after all, preparing to enter the Imperial Navy the following year, after his 15th birthday.

In that, he was like her beloved father, Prince Alfred Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. A sailor prince whose naval career had caused his second daughter to be born on the Mediterranean island of Malta (and inspired her name, Victoria Melita), Alfred had since been landlocked as the heir to his father's patrimony in Saxe-Coburg, deep in the heart of Germany. Victoria Melita, affectionately called Ducky in the family, was a challenge to her mother, the imperious Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, who had been delighted to remove her daughter's from the English influences of their father's homeland when they moved to Germany. Now, she was focused on finding sons-in-law that would put her daughter's in positions of power and keep them out of England.

However, a match with Kirill was impossible, no matter how dreamy he might be. He was too far from a throne. More importantly, the Russian Orthodox Church forbade marriage between first cousins. Any thought of Kirill had to be wiped from Ducky's mind. In this, Maria had an unlikely ally: her mother-in-law, Queen Victoria, who would adamantly (but sometimes unsuccessfully) oppose Russian marriages for any of her granddaughters.

And so, Ducky was dragged back to Germany while Kirill went off to the Navy while Mama and Grandmama searched for a more suitable suitor. In fact, Victoria has already started her planning just weeks earlier when Ducky visited her at a her Scottish home in Balmoral at just the same time as another grandchild, Prince Ernest Louis, heir to the Grand Duke of Hesse, also in Germany. He was the only surviving son of Victoria's second daughter Princess Alice. As it turns out, Ducky's English and German relatives had no qualms about marriage among first cousins. Victoria and Albert had been first cousins themselves. The fact that Victoria Melita and Ernest Louis were born on the 25th of November must be a sign of their compatibility. Never mind that neither was very keen on the other. Nevertheless, the two dutiful grandchildren were persuaded to stand together before an altar in 1894. She was 17. He was 25 and had by then succeeded his father as Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt and by Rhine.

Victoria Melita and Elisabeth

by C Ruf via Wikimedia Commons

The newlyweds were immediately fruitful with their daughter, Elisabeth, born just 11 months after the wedding. The couple also engaged in a boisterous social life throwing parties from which anyone over 30 was banned. They filled their circle with progressives and artists and insisted on informality. As a couple, however, they had no spark. Ducky found Ernie cold and undemonstrative. The only thing she enjoyed less about life in Hesse than her husband was probably being his consort. The lively teenager did not feel at all compelled to take up the duties of leading a nation, which often included spending time with people who were far less jolly than she. Ernie was impatient with her attitude. She responded with shouting, throwing both tantrums and tea trays. As with other unhappy royal brides, she escaped outside to ride her beloved horse and to travel internationally while Ernie preferred staying home with their daughter.

When Ducky's Uncle Tsar Alexander III died, the pair traveled together to Russia for the coronation of her cousin Tsar Nicholas II and Ernie's sister, the new Empress Alexandra. Ernie described the coronation as "the most splendid ceremony I have ever seen." Ducky, however, found something else even more splendid: Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, whose time in the Navy had no doubt added more charm and maturity. Ducky and Cousin Kirill rekindled their childhood flirtation before reality dragged them back into their separate lives.

Ducky escaped Hesse the next year for an extended visit to her older sister, Missy, better known then as Crown Princess Marie of Romania. When she returned north, she allegedly discovered Ernie bedding a male servant. The couple tried to keep up the pretence of their marriage, especially since Grandmama Victoria strictly forbade a divorce, but neither was happy. Ernie would later describe their life together as misery with both staying together mostly for their daughter's sake. Some joy returned when Ducky fell pregnant but a devastating stillbirth in May 1900 sent both careening once again into their separate, unhappy corners. Queen Victoria's death in January 1901 relieved a lot of the opposition to divorc and the two officially split later that year.

Ducky went to live with her mother, splitting their time between Coburg and the French Riviera. Five-year-old Elisabeth spent half the year with Ducky and half with Ernie, but she was often unhappy with her mother, who had never had as strong of a bond with her as Ernie had. In October 1903, Ernie took eight-year-old Elisabeth with him to visit his sister Empress Alexandra of Russia and her family at an imperial hunting lodge. While the grown-ups spent the days hunting, Elisabeth and her cousins, the young Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia played games and roamed through the forest. Perhaps after drinking from a contaminated water source in the forest, Elisabeth fell ill with typhoid fever. By the time a telegraph reached Ducky, the little girl was already dead. At the white funeral Ernie arranged for their daughter, Ducky removed her Hessian medallion and placed it on the tiny coffin, making her last break with the marriage that had made her so unhappy.

In the meantime, Kirill's interest in Ducky was growing, to his family's horror. Not only were they scandalized by her divorce, they were still deadset against marriage among cousins. His desperate mother even encouraged him to assuage his longing by taking Ducky as a mistress, but not as a wife. While serving in the Russo-Japanese war, Kirill's ship hit a mine. He suffered debilitating burns and injuries and was sent home. His near death experience led him to make a momentous decision. Both he and Ducky had tried living by others' rules, now they would live by their own.

Kirill and Victoria

by Eduoard Uhlenhuh via Wikimedia Commons

In October 1905, Victoria Melita married Kirill in a simple Orthodox ceremony in her mother's home in Coburg. The marriage was almost more shocking than her divorce had been. Not only had she not sought permission from her uncle King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, as required for a royal princess, but Kirill had not obtained permission from his cousin the Tsar. As the fourth in line for the Russian throne, this decision was monumental. Nicholas II stripped him of his titles and military rank and forbade the newlywed to return to Russia. They lived between Coburg, where their daugther Maria was born in 1907, and Paris, where daughter Kira was born in 1909.

By this time, the Tsar relented in his anger and restored Kirill's titles and rank. Ducky was created Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna and launched herself as a social hostess between their homes in St. Petersburg and Tsarskoe Selo. She continued her love of riding and indulged in painting, gardening and home decoration while Kirill took up auto racing. She still enjoyed traveling abroad, especially during the bleak Russian winters opting to spend time with her mother in France or her sister Marie in Romania, far to the south.

The family was summering on their yacht in the Baltic in 1914, stopping off in Riga for one of Kirill's auto races, when the First World War broke out. While Kirill served in Poland on the staff of the commander of the Russian Army, Victoria took on work as a nurse, as so many royal women did. Perhaps drawing on her husband's love of automobiles, she even created a motorized ambuland unit. She sometimes traveled to Romania to assist her sister with war victims. In Russia, however, familial tensions were rising due to the influence of Gregory Rasputin over Nicholas and Alexandra, who believed he could relieve the hemophiliac suffering of their son Tsarevich Alexei. After Imperial relatives murdered Rasputin, the couple joined in requests for leniency for the perpetrators, but Nicholas was unyielding.

The pair remained publicly loyal to the Tsar but they were privately very worried about the future of the monarchy and the dynasty. When the February Revolution of 1917 led to the Tsar's abdication, Kirill and Victoria Melita were secretly siding with the mob that surrounded their palace in St. Petersburg. Kirill and his naval unit swore allegiance to the new Provisional Government. He hoped to preserve the monarchy but many relatives viewed this act as treason. Kirill was forced to resign while Ducky wrote to her sister Marie that they were losing everything.

Now in the early stages of her final pregnancy, 40-year-old Ducky knew they had to escape Russia. The Provisional Government agreed to let them go to Finland, which was a quasi-independent Russian territory at the time. In August 1917, their son Vladimir Kirillovich was born in Finland, but they were rapidly running out of sustenance. By the following summer, when their Russian relatives were being massacred back home, they had been reduced to begging for baby food from family outside of the former empire. Ducky had pleaded with her cousin, now King George V, to send more help for the Romanovs and the Provisional Government, but he had refused. That was a blow that would not heal.

In 1919, after the war, the desperate family went first to her mother in Germany and then on to Switzerland. Later, she inherited her mother's homes in France and Coburg, where Ducky showed an interest in the emerging Nazi party due to its strong stance against the Bolsheviks.

After nursing Kirill through a breakdown in 1923, the couple focused on their dynastic aspirations. While many refused to believe rumors about the murders of the Tsar and his immediate family, Kirill felt it was important to accept them. Once Nicholas' only brother was declared legally dead, he decided to act. Much to the dismay of many Romanovs, he made himself the head of the family and "Guardian of the Throne" and raised his children from Princesses and Prince to Grand Duchesses and Grand Duke. When Germany began strenghthening its relationship with Soviet Russia, the family moved permanently to France.

There, they lived among many British ex-pats and maintained their imperial pretenses. They enjoyed throwing parties and socializing, but their romance came to a shuddering halt when Ducky discovered that his sojourns to Paris were for adultery. She did not seek a divorce as she had with her first husband, but she was devastated. When she suffered a stroke at the age of 59, it was her sister Marie she was glad to see, not her husband. She died surrounded by family and was buried at Coburg. After the fall of the USSR, she and Kirill, who died just two years after her, were among the many Romanovs to be re-interred in St. Petersburg, due in large part to the efforts of their granddaughter, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, who today styles herself as Head of the Imperial House of Romanov.

14 February 2026

A Powerful Young Woman Who Never Wore a Crown

Ingeborg's seal

via Wikimedia Commons

Scandinavia was a fairly brutal place in the Middle Ages. The daughter of King Håkan V of Norway would experience this firsthand. Unlike most women of the era, she would hold significant power. However, she would endure terrible deaths of the men in her life.

Ingeborg Håkansdotter was born in 1301 and her fate was determined by the time she was a year old: she was engaged to marry 19-year-old Erik Magnusson, younger brother of King Birger of Sweden. When the brothers had a falling out, the engagement was broken. When they made up, it was reinstated. (Historically, multiple sons guaranteed a king's lineage would hold the throne. However, multiple brothers often meant a king would spend his life battling against the spare heirs.)

In 1312, Erik and his younger brother Valdemar traveled to Norway for a double wedding. Erik married 11-year-old Ingeborg Håkansdotter while Valdemar married her 15-year-old cousin Ingeborg Eriksdotter. The two cousins returned to Sweden with their husbands and began a journey into power as allies. Both gave birth to sons in 1316. Eriksdotter's son would die young, but Håkansdotter's son Magnus would become the primary focus for both women in future years. Ingeborg also had a daughter, Euphemia, in 1317.

Despite their young ages and frail female status, both Ingeborgs were empowered by their husbands to rule their territories were while the two brothers were away once again fighting against their older brother King Birger. A reconciliation was proposed with the king invited Erik and Valdemar to join him for a feast. Birger, however, had other ideas. He captured his troublesome siblings and imprisoned them. Within weeks, both were dead, probably from starvation.

As Birger and his son Magnus Birgersson battled against the ensuing rebellion from the murdered brothers, their young widows consolidated their power. Birger was defeated by an army led by Canute Porse and in July 1319, the Swedish Council elected three-year-old Magnus Eriksson King of Sweden to prevent Birger and his son from regaining power. Both men died soon thereafter. The death of King Håkan of Norway the following month brought another crown to the little King Magnus. Ingeborg, at the age of 18, was the mother of the King of Sweden and Norway. She was named Regent for her son in Norway and she and her cousin Ingeborg sat on his council in Sweden.

Canute Porse became one of Ingeborg's chief advisors and her lover, much to the disgust of others on the council. Canute, after all, was a Dane! A foreigner whispering advice into the ear of the King's mother was not acceptable. During this time, Ingeborg also had a lot of power in her own fiefdoms and she sought to extend her territories into neighboring Scania, which was then part of Denmark. She betrothed her daughter Euphemia to Albert II Duke of Mecklenburg in return for his military support against Scania. When Canute Porse and Ingeborg invaded Scania with authorization only from Norway's council but not from Sweden's and then Mecklenburg withdraw his support, Ingeborg's days as a political leader were rapidly drawing to a close. Many of her decisions were seen as arbitrary, poorly advised by foreigners (including Canute), or too self-interested (as if powerful men of the era were not self-interested...) Norway and Sweden removed her and Canute from power but the couple stayed together and even married. They had two sons before Canute died leaving Ingeborg a widow once again at the age of 29. She continued to hold control over vast amounts of territory and strategic fortresses.

The following year, 15-year-old King Magnus was declared of age to rule on his own. Ingeborg no longer attempted to exert regal power, but she continued to support her son and was sometimes present on state occasions. In 1350, she lost both of her sons by Canute to the plague. They were young adults but left no heirs. Her grandchildren by Magnus both became kings, splitting the personal union of Sweden and Norway with Sweden going to the oldest Eric XII and Norway to the youngest, Håkan VI. One of her grandchildren by Euphemia would also wear the Swedish crown as King Albert.

Ingeborg died in 1361.

More About Ingeborg
All These Ladies Named Ingeborg on The Freelance History Writer
Ingeborg Håkansdotter on Svenskt Kvinnobiografiskt Lexicon
Ingeborg Haakansdotter on Meet the Middle Ages
Queens Regent - Ingeborg of Norway on The History of Royal Women

28 January 2026

Farewell Princess Desiree of Sweden

By SCANPIX via Wikimedia Commons

The 1950s was a heyday for glamorous princesses. Like never before, these beautiful young women were constantly in the public eye, whether representing their monarchs or entertaining with their friends. The most famous was, of course, Queen Elizabeth II's younger sister Princess Margaret along with their younger cousin Princess Alexandra, but Europe was bursting with others. The number of royal princesses born in the 1930s and 1940s outnumbered their royal brothers. Greece boasted two princesses to one prince with the same ratio in Norway. Belgium had an even split: three princesses and three princes. Denmark had three princesses and no princes while The Netherlands had only princesses--four of them!

Sweden also had four princesses and they had one baby brother. Known collectively as the "Haga Princesses" after their childhood home, Princesses Margaretha, Birgitta, Desiree and Christina grew up in a close and loving family. Legally, as women, they were barred from inheriting the throne. So, when the third girl, Desiree, was born on June 2, 1938, there was likely some disappointment that she was not a boy at last. Nevertheless, Desiree, like her sisters became very popular in Sweden and beyond.

The birth of baby brother Carl Gustav in 1946 relieved the looming succession crisis and gave his big sisters an object of adoration. The family's joy, however, was eclipsed just eight months later when their father was killed in a plane crash while returning from a personal visit to The Netherlands. Desiree was eight years old. Their mother, the former Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg, was left to bring up the five children on her own. The princesses were mostly educated at home in small classes with girls of the same age before enrolling at Franska Skolan in Stockholm where classes were taught in French.

Princess Desiree (far right) with her siblings and parents

By Ateljé Jaeger via Wikimedia Commons

Desiree showed an early love of the arts, taking both ballet and piano lessons. She particularly enjoyed drawing and needlework, and later enrolled in a degree program in textiles at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts, and Design to learn more about embroidery and weaving. Like most Scandinavians, she enjoyed outdoor sports, excelling at skiing. She studied French in Switzerland. But, Desiree's love for children guided her career choices. After completing a course in infant care, she worked as a preschool teacher and completed internships at a playhouse, a children's hospital and a school for blind children. She was a natural with the youngsters who liked her very much.

At the same time, Desiree had become one of the popular princesses of the 1950s. Her sisters' and her every move was documented in the press. A fact that enabled their grandfather, King Gustav VI Adolf, to expand Swedish interests around the world. Once, while on a goodwill visit to the United States, Desiree drew particular interest because of her attention to a child. When a young four-year-old girl asked the princess for a kiss, Desiree blushingly obliged.

Kisses were likely on Desiree's mind back home, too. While public rumors circulated that Desiree might marry Constantine of Greece (who actually later married her first cousin, Princess Anne Marie of Denmark), Desiree had found love closer to home. She has fallen for Greger "Teddy" Lewenhaupt, an older brother of one her brother's friends. The two were perhaps moving toward an engagement when Teddy was killed in a skiing accident in 1960. The 22-year-old princess had lost someone she loved to tragedy once again.

Her heartbreak began to heal in the next year when she caught the attention of her friend Irma's brother, Niclas Silfverschiold. Four years older than Desiree, Niclas had already completed studies at an agricultural college, served as an officer in the Swedish Army and had taken over the headship of his family and their properties upon his father's death in 1955. He held both Koberg Castle in Vastergotland and Gasevadholm Castle in Halland. The couple were married June 5, 1964 in a royal wedding at Storkyrkan in Stockholm. Desiree wore the same wedding dress her older sister, Brigitta, had worn three years earlier. She also wore the same tiara, the Swedish Cameo Tiara, that has come to be known as the traditional bridal tiara in the Swedish Royal Family. Its most recent wedding appearance was on Desiree's niece and goddaughter, Crown Princess Victoria, at her own wedding in 2010.

Because Niclas was merely a baron and not a prince, Desiree surrendered her royal status to marry him. She was however granted the courtesy of being called "Princess Desiree, Baroness Silfverschiold" for the rest of her life. After their marriage, the couple focused on family life and running the Silfverschiold estates. Desiree rarely took on public duties for the next six decades, although she did appear at large family events and sometimes attended Nobel Prize events, dressed in gala attire with other members of her family.

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Desiree's focus, however, was on motherhood. She and Niclas welcome three children in quick succession. Carl was born nine months after their wedding; Christina 18 months after him; and Helene 24 months after her. While the public might still have thrilled at any news or sightings of her, Desiree was very clear on what was important to her. Once, when her grandfather was still king, he asked what jewelry she would like for her birthday. Desiree requested a tractor instead because "Niclas needs it for farming."

Princess Desiree & Baron Niclas Silfverschiold

By Frankie Fouganthin via Wikimedia Commons

When Sweden finally introduced a law to allow women to inherit the throne, Desiree and her sisters were still barred because the succession was limited only to the descendants of their brother, King Carl XVI Gustaf. Desiree likely was unbothered by this decision. As she said in an interview in 2008, "I now see myself only as a mother and wife and do not attach much importantce to my princessship." She went on to explain, "In principle, I think it is wrong to rely on origins and kinship."

Baron Niclas Silfverschiold passed away at age 82 in 2017. Princess Desiree died at home, surrounded by family, on January 21, 2026 at the age of 87. She is the second Haga Princess to pass; Princess Birgitta died in December 2024, also at the age of 87.

Princess Desiree is survived by her three children and five grandchildren.

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More about Desiree
Heartbreak for the Swedish Royal Family on Tatler
The King of Sweden's Sister, Princess Desiree, Dies on Royal Central
Princess Desiree, Baroness Silfverschiold on The Royal Watcher
Princess Desiree Did Not Want to Rely on Her Royal Title on Sweden Herald
Princess Desiree Has Passed Away on Swedish Royal Court (Official Page)
Princess Desiree of Sweden, Baroness Silfverschiold on Unofficial Royalty
Princess Desiree of Sweden Dies at Age of 87 on Town & Country
Princess Desiree of Sweden, A Haga Princess on History of Royal Women
Princess Desiree of Sweden Has Died on The Royal Watcher